


for my prayer has always been love

by procrastinatingbookworm



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Bondage, Catharsis, Collars, Consensual Non-Consent, Crying, Dom/sub, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Explicit Consent, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Non-Sexual Kink, Praise Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29306097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: Zagreus makes an open-ended request. Achilles takes the opportunity to lead him to catharsis.
Relationships: Achilles/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 162





	for my prayer has always been love

“Is there something on your mind, lad?” Achilles asks.

They’re entangled on Zagreus’ rug, weapons and clothes strewn halfway across the floor. There’s the beginning of a hickey stinging Achilles’ neck, and Zagreus—

Zagreus is frowning. 

“I was just thinking, sir,” Zagreus says, then bites his lip, which has managed to go kiss-bitten red already, though Achilles wasn’t being particularly forceful with him. “I wouldn’t mind if you were rougher with me. Only you’d like to, of course, Achilles, sir.”

“Rougher with you,” Achilles echoes, thoughtfully. “And what would that entail? I’m no Mistress Megara, nor would I want to be.”

Zagreus chuckles. “No, I can’t see you with a whip, sir. But I—” his chin drops, and he lifts it again, pointedly, looking into Achilles’ face. “I’d like it if you took control.”

“I can do that, lad,” Achilles says, firm but still gentle, and watches as Zagreus _relaxes_ , a tension that Achilles hadn’t even noticed dropping out of his shoulders and his jaw.

“Thank you, sir,” Zagreus sighs, eyes falling half-shut. “I appreciate it.”

“Stand up,” Achilles says. “Pick up your sword, and put it back in the courtyard.” 

Wordlessly, Zagreus obeys, as if he’d expected nothing different. 

It’s only practical, to put the sword away—one of them will trip over it if it stays on the floor. But sending Zagreus out of the room gives Achilles room to think. Gives him time to scrub his hands over his face and decide what he’s going to do.

Once he thinks about it, it’s not much of a choice at all.

Achilles leans his own spear against the wall by the door, and piles their abandoned clothing on the chaise in the corner of the room.

Zagreus returns nearly at a run, lurching to a stop in the middle of the room and standing to attention.

“Take off your greaves,” Achilles says. “And your jewelry. Put them on the chaise with the rest of our things.”

He almost startles himself, with his tone of voice. It’s not the voice he would use to command. He isn’t certain he has that voice in him any longer. But it is firmer than the tone he usually takes with Zagreus, and it seems to be working wonders.

Zagreus obeys. His shoulders are still relaxed, although his hands shake, and he shifts his weight back and forth when he returns to his place on the rug, almost swaying in place.

Gods, Achilles wants to wrap him up and never let him go. He’s such a precious thing—the eager kindness that he has in abundance is in such short supply among men and gods both. Zagreus is a commodity, rarer than Ambrosia and far more exquisite.

“Your leggings next,” Achilles continues, looking away from him to sort through the chest at the foot of the bed. “And then your belt.”

He listens to Zagreus move—listens to his breath pick up and his footsteps stutter when Achilles takes the rope out of the chest.

When he looks over again, Zagreus is watching him intently, eyes huge. He’s down to his chiton and the laurels in his hair, looking strangely small in the loose fabric.

“Good boy,” Achilles says, just to see him react.

It doesn’t disappoint. Zagreus’ knees buckle visibly, his eyes shuttering closed as he _sighs,_ low and peaceful. It reminds Achilles of the noise Cerberus makes when Zagreus pets him—whiny and self-indulgent and utterly content.

“Kneel on the bed,” Achilles orders, unwinding the rope from itself as Zagreus nearly tips himself over in his rush to comply. “Easy, now.”

“Sorry, sir,” Zagreus says—whines, really.

“Don’t be sorry. Just be careful.”

“Yes sir,” Zagreus replies.

“Good boy.”

Another blissful whine. This one, Achilles gets to see up-close. Zagreus shudders against the praise as though he’s fighting it, breath quivering out of his chest.

Achilles steps nearer. Near enough to feel the warmth of Zagreus’ skin.

“We don’t even need this,” Achilles murmurs, even as manhandles Zagreus into position. “You’d do just as I say, stay exactly where I tell you. You’re plenty obedient when you’re treated right.”

Zagreus opens his eyes. He peers through his lashes at Achilles. “Do you want me to be obedient?” he asks.

“Only to the extent that it pleases you.” Achille says. “Would you like a word to call a halt to this, or should I stop when you say to stop?”

“I—” Zagreus starts. Stops. Swallows hard, throat bobbing with it. “Orchid. If I want to stop—if I really want you to stop, and I’m not just… making noise, I’ll say orchid.”

“Orchid,” Achilles repeats, then presses a kiss to Zagreus’ lips, chaste and tender. “Good lad.”

It doesn’t quite get the reaction that _good boy_ did—more of a shiver than a shudder, more of a sigh than a whine, but it’s still lovely to watch it strike him.

Zagreus is pliant and quiet as Achilles positions him. He lets himself be pushed back on his heels, lets his arms be bound behind his back and his legs bound to themselves. 

“You have a collar, don’t you?” Achilles asks, though it isn’t a question, as such. “From when Cerberus was smaller.”

Zagreus nods.

“Do you want it?” Achilles asks.

Another nod, slower.

Achilles stands up, petting Zagreus’ hair for a moment, before he walks into the courtyard to fetch the collar from the keepsake cabinet.

Zagreus is rocking back and forth when Achilles returns, shifting his weight on the mattress. He looks peaceful, his face relaxed, as close to stillness as he ever gets.

Achilles buckles the collar around Zagreus’ throat. “Open your eyes for me, lad.”

Zagreus complies. His pupils are blown, irises reduced to shining rings. He looks dazed and lovely.

“Good boy,” Achilles says, unable to repress a smile at Zagreus’ happy sigh. He slides the loose end of the rope under the collar and ties it there. “Comfortable?”

“Yes sir,” Zagreus says. “Thank you, sir.”

His voice is like melted sugar—all high and sweet and crackling at the edges. Something vicious in Achilles’ wants to shove his fingers into Zagreus’ mouth, and feel that voice at its source.

Instead, he sits down on the bed with Zagreus and kisses him. Slowly, gently. Even when he catches Zagreus’ bottom lip between his teeth, he’s tender with it.

_Beloved_ almost crawls out of his throat when he pulls back, but he swallows that too. Zagreus _is_ beloved—close to his heart, part of his soul, but there’s a time and place for confessions like that, and this isn’t it.

“Sir?” Zagreus asks, his voice gone even softer, and something in Achilles cracks open.

How can he resist?

“What have any of us done to deserve you?” Achilles asks, shifting closer to Zagreus and laying a hand along his jaw, stroking his cheek with his thumb.

“Sir?” Zagreus repeats. More tentative.

“You’re a gentle creature, I think,” Achilles goes on. “I’m sorry I had to teach you to kill. You’re far more suited to kindness than violence, for all that you were raised on too little of the former and far too much of the latter.”

“I don’t know about that,” Zagreus says, unevenly. “Killing is all I ever really took to.”

“Perhaps that’s what your father tells you, but I disagree,” Achilles retorts. “I’ve never seen anyone, man or god, offer kindness so quickly and so freely, and continue to offer it even when it’s rebuked.”

Zagreus squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t say a word.

“You’ve been quite brave, lad. In your kindness and your violence. To throw oneself upon a sword again and again is a daunting task even to the immortal.”

“This isn’t—” Zagreus starts, eyes fluttering open. “I didn’t expect this.”

“Nor did I,” Achilles confesses. “I was only going to touch you after I tied you, and praise you for more superficial things, but I think you need to hear this more than that.”

Zagreus swallows. “You weren’t—I thought you wanted to hit me.”

“Do you want to be hit?” Achilles asks.

“Not by you,” Zagreus says, so quickly that he seems to startle himself with the answer.

“Zagreus,” Achilles says, as evenly as he can. “I think you’ve been punished enough.”

Zagreus’ face crumples. “Sir,” he says. “Please.”

Not _orchid_ . Just _please._

“You’re captivating, my brave lad,” Achilles goes on, even as Zagreus’ jaw quivers under his palm. “Such a sweet thing. Sweet as nectar. Sweet as Ambrosia.”

“I can’t,” Zagreus says. His voice cracks, breaks. There are tears gathering on his lashes. “Sir, I can’t.”

“You can,” Achilles replies. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”

“Achilles,” Zagreus sobs, the name punched out of his chest. “Achilles, please.”

“God of life,” Achilles murmurs. “Tending love, ensuring it grows. When did the absence of the sun ever stop you? You’ve started a garden here.”

He sets his free hand against Zagreus’ chest, feeling his heart race under his palm.

“You wanted to grow love, so you planted it. You wanted to grow kindness, so you planted it. You wanted to grow affection, and gift-giving, and forgiveness. You had just the seeds, no soil. No sun, no water. You grew them anyway.”

A tear drops onto Achilles’ thumb, drips the length of his hand, falls away.

“Stop,” Zagreus says, when Achilles rests both hands on his face and draws their foreheads together. He’s crying in earnest now; his voice is ruined with it. “Stop, please, I can’t.”

Achilles quiets, for a moment. Gives him a chance to say _orchid_ , to call a halt.

He doesn’t.

“You’ve done nothing to deserve punishment,” Achilles says, as much a final blow as any spear aimed to kill.

It strikes true.

Zagreus _keens_. The noise drags out of his throat as though Achilles had pulled it out in fistfuls. A low noise of pain, building to a wall of agony sharp as the pain of death.

Achilles knows it well. Any man that has even gone to war knows the sound of grief. If he’s lucky, he’ll only have heard it. If he’s unlucky, it will echo in his own throat.

For all his unluckiness, Achilles manages to keep his composure. He pulls Zagreus closer, cradling the bound weight of him to his chest as Zagreus cries in fits and starts against his neck.

“You are loved,” Achilles says. There’s nothing else to say. Nothing else matters. “You are loved, Zagreus. You are loved.”


End file.
